


Auf Wiederhören

by infandomswetrust



Series: Redemption [5]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Hurt, Love, M/M, Nostalgia, Phone Call, as always, fluff if you squint, if you squint really really hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-02
Updated: 2014-07-02
Packaged: 2018-02-07 02:42:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1882023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/infandomswetrust/pseuds/infandomswetrust
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will's heart skipped a beat, as always when the phone rang.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Auf Wiederhören

**Author's Note:**

> Title is german and roughly means 'hear from you again', it's something you say when ending a phone call. 
> 
> Yes. Read the others first. This is a series for a reason. Go.

Love.

Why did his words still cling to Will more than a year later? He was an intelligent psychopath. He couldn’t feel love. He had had an obsession, nothing more. He wasn’t capable of love. Fondness maybe, fascination, admiration, but never love.

Then Will remembered something. He remembered the look in Hannibal’s eyes when he talked about his sister. A look that said more than words ever could. He was capable. Or had been, once.

Why had Will seen that exact same look in his eyes before he had felt the knife? Could it be that Will had changed him _this_ much? That he had restored the part that was human? He ran his fingers over the drawing of Patroclus’ death thoughtfully. He had framed it, without questioning his motives. His motives were ridiculously, shamefully obvious after all. It seemed terribly out of place on his desk. A piece of past in the middle of a mess that tried to move on. Winston whined to his feet, sensing Will’s distress. He always sensed when Will was feeling bad, and the young man actually felt guilty for being such a burden to the poor dog these past months. He reached down and crawled Winston behind his ears absentmindedly. Suddenly he felt him twitching underneath his hand. The dog stirred and suddenly stilled, sitting completely stiff. Before Will could try to find out what was bothering the dog, his phone started ringing. Winston stiffened further, his head slightly tilted upwards, staring at the ringing phone. Will’s heart skipped a beat, as always when the phone rang.

 _It can't be_ , he told himself, as always when the phone rang. 

Will frowned and suddenly felt a huge amount of rage against the dog for reacting this way. For making it seem like it would make sense. Like there was any chance. He knew he was being unreasonable, Winston had done nothing but reacted to a sound, his own mind had started spinning a thought, but he still sent the dog out sternly, punishing him as if he had done something wrong. The only thing that was wrong was the fact that the phone was still ringing and that Will tried to fill the void inside him with the sound. He didn’t try to stop hope from arising, it was arising every time he got mail, a phone call, a text, a letter. It hurt a bit more each time the hope was killed again, but he told himself he deserved it. He deserved all the pain he could get. He needed it. Pain was the only thing that could ground him now. He had to rely on it.

But there was something different about this. With the first ring, the entire atmosphere in the room had changed. A part of Will knew there was something real about this. He wondered how long he had been standing, frozen on the spot like Winston before, but the caller seemed to have patience. The phone kept on ringing until Will’s arm followed an order his mind hadn’t given and reached forward to pick up the phone. He held it to his ear and didn’t say a word. Just kept still. Waited. Curious what would happen, so to say. Before he heard his voice, it was as if he could hear a smile.

“I didn’t think you would stay true to your words when you claimed there was nothing left to say.”

Silence. It was real. This was real. His voice, a highway to the past, leading Will straight back with stomach turning speed. Will swallowed violently, tasting bile, and almost choked as he tried to take a deep breath. What on earth could he say? What on earth couldn’t he say? Everything that was on his mind, that had been on his mind for 13 months, couldn’t possibly be put into words. Words were far too simple. It took Will quite a while to answer, but Hannibal was patient. Had been patient for 13 months. The only thing Will could trust himself to do was to remain shallow, for now.

“You read her book,” he stated, his voice sounding foreign and he didn’t feel like he had been the one speaking. He felt as if he was a bystander, just coincidentally listening in on this conversation.

“Didn’t you think I would?”

In fact, he had been counting on it.

“I couldn’t allow myself to expect anything from you,” he answered quietly. Silence was heavy and painful for a long moment until Hannibal answered, his voice softer than Will had ever heard it. He sounded almost…vulnerable.

“I miss you, Will.”

“I found your drawing.”

He ran his fingers over the framed picture again, his index finger lovingly tracing the shape of Achilles’ crouching body.

“You went to my office?”

“Where else did I have to go?”

There was the silence again. Funny how he had wanted nothing more than to talk with Hannibal one last time these past months, and now, hearing the other’s soft breath through the phone, he couldn’t think of anything to say. It was Hannibal who broke the silence.

“Do you regret what happened?”

“I don’t regret trying to achieve justice. I regret the outcome.”

“As do I.” Hannibal paused. “Justice is to right someone’s actions, not to create more wrong in order to hurt them. You didn’t desire justice, Will. You desired a reckoning.”

Will swallowed and suddenly wondered what Hannibal would smell on him if they would be talking face to face now. Probably mostly his exhaustion. Will knew he wasn’t doing well. He had lost several pounds in the past year. Too many. He was a mere shadow of himself.

His body was more fragile than ever, but his mind, his mind was blooming. The flower had grown and overlooked the secret garden. But the garden was abandoned now. The flower was getting weaker. It needed care.

“I desired redemption. I still do.”

“We’re past redemption, Will. We are even.”

“We _were_ even. Then you left.”

“You told Freddie Lounds you would catch me one day.”

“I will.”

“Perhaps you can. But is that what you want?”

“It’s what I need to do. Anything other would be selfish.”

“You can allow yourself to be selfish, Will. You earned it.”

“Don’t patronize me. I didn’t _earn_ anything. I lost. You took.”

“I took only because you were deceiving me into believing you were willing to give.”

“I was,” Will said quietly. “I still am.”

He heard something in the background that sounded like a ship before Hannibal began to speak again.

“That night, you said you warned me to apologize. What were you apologizing for?”

 _For betraying you._ No. That wasn’t quite the truth now, was it?

“For betraying myself.”

“What makes you believe you betrayed yourself?”

“You flipped a switch inside me. There was a point where I was lost. I was lying to you. Lying to Jack. Lying to myself. I didn’t know how much of it was pretend anymore. I still can’t be certain. But I know that that switch has been there long before I met you. You were just the first one who wanted to put it to use. I betrayed myself, not only regarding the switch’s existence but also regarding your capability to flip it. And then I reflected and betrayed you as well.”

“Your striving to eliminate the switch is what brought us to this situation." Hannibal paused.  "I forgive you, Will, but will you forgive yourself?”

“I’m in the same state of non-forgiveness I would be in if I would have left with you.”

“But wouldn't you have less to forgive yourself for?”

“You said I strive to eliminate the switch,” Will said, ignoring Hannibal's question. 

“I don’t believe you do anymore.”

“You saw to that.”

“You flipped a switch in me as well, Will.”

“The difference is you have no trouble with flipping it back.”

There was a pregnant pause and for a short, irrationally panicked moment, Will thought Hannibal might have hung up.

“I believe that is where you are wrong, Will.”

“You were wrong too. What you said- you were wrong. You don’t love me. You can’t.” Will wished his voice wouldn’t sound so neutral, he wished he could sob or scream; anything to show Hannibal the pain he had to cling to.

“Is that what your empathy tells you?” At least Hannibal sounded just as neutral. As if this was another session. As if time had rewound.

“It’s what my rationality tells me.”

“After all you've experienced, I was convinced you wouldn’t fall for the delusion of rationality anymore.”

Will felt himself smiling bitterly.

“And I was convinced you were aware of the rationality of delusions,” he answered.

“What about the rationality of forgiveness?”

“It seems to be more important to you that I forgive myself than forgive you.”

“I do hope you will forgive me one day, Will. I just don’t have the right to ask for it.”

“Neither do I.”

“You didn't have to. I provided.”

“Why? How could you say what you said and do what you did? How could you _leave_ if you truly love me?”

He heard a short, soft sound, a warm sound, an amused huff maybe. Amused because Will seemed to be more upset about the fact that he had said he loved him and left than by the fact that he had gutted him and left.

“You deprived me of any other choice than leaving the way I did, Will.”

Will swallowed and stared out of the window. It had meanwhile gotten dark outside and a glance at the clock revealed that it was a little after midnight. Meaning probably early mid-day for Hannibal. Will tried to picture the sun gracing the older man’s face, painting shadows to contrast his features, floating through his ashen blond hair beam by beam.

“Have you been sleeping, Will?”

“Not more or less than a year ago.” Lie. He knew he was a mess. Hadn’t been eating, hadn’t been sleeping, hadn’t cared. He knew Hannibal knew. There was another pause, considerate, thoughtful.

“Would you promise me something if I asked you to?” The older man sounded genuinely uncertain.

“Would you believe me if I promised something to you?”

“I would hope for the best.”

Will let out a low, humorless laugh.

“Ask, then.”

“Will you promise me to take good care of yourself?”

“You worry about me,” Will stated.

“Have I ever not?”

“I promise.”

There was another pause and again, Will felt like he could hear Hannibal smile. He tried to picture the sun resting on his smile, making it warmer than it already was.

“Go to bed, Will.”

Will obeyed and laid down, the phone in his hand, clutching at it like a life line.

“Can you…” Will paused and closed his eyes. “Just… Don’t stop talking, please.” His voice was silent and distant. 

“Do you still hear my voice inside your head?”

“You took everything, Hannibal. Your voice. My voice. You left a void. Fill it.”

And so Hannibal did, told him about places he had seen, stories he had lived through, people he had known. He allowed Will to come with him to places of his past, shared pieces of his life until Will was feeling heavier and heavier, his eyes falling closed without him realizing until he snapped them back open. When he was sure he was almost gone, drifting too close to the edge of sleep, he tightened his grip around the phone.

“Hannibal?”

“Yes, Will?”

“I miss you too.”

 

There was so much more he wanted to say, _needed_ to say, but this was a start.

Or an end?

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
